Monday, May 30, 2016

It's been a crazy year, and I can't believe that it's been 178 school days since I last wrote anything here on my blog! I hope you have enjoyed your school year as much as I have!

Today, I am going to share with you how important the first ten minutes of the day are in my Kindergarten classroom. Whenever this routine is changed for some reason (hello meetings), it throws off our day just a little.

To give you a little idea of our morning schedule, the bell for the students to come into the classroom is at 9:00. Our student council has a morning newscast each morning at 9:10 that we watch each morning, and our tardy bell rings at 9:15.

The most important part of the first ten minutes happens as soon as I open the door. My students are lined up outside my classroom door. As each one of my Kinders walk through the door, I greet them with a "Good Morning!" and a wave. I feel that this is so important so that each child feels welcome in our classroom.

After I greet my Kinders, they head off to their table spots. My Kinders then get out their take home folders and lunches if they brought one from home. I have a total of five tables of students that I call one by one to turn their red folders and lunch cards. (The lunch cards contain each student's picture, name, and barcode that is used when a student buys lunch. I place these on their tables each morning before the day begins.) The students place their folders in the big basket, and their lunch cards in one of the two smaller baskets.

While I am calling each table, the other students are doing a variety of other things. They might complete an activity from the day before, cut out items for an upcoming project, color, and sometimes they just talk with each other. Once all of the folders are turned in, I quickly go through them to look for any notes or papers and take lunch count. By the time all of this has been completed, the student news is on, and we are ready to start our day!

We start this routine on the first day of school. By the end of the first week, my Kinders are completing this routine without any help. I hope you enjoyed hearing about the beginning of our day! What does your class do in the first ten minutes of the day?

Monday, August 24, 2015

Well, today was the day. The first day of Kindergarten! I just thought I would quickly share with you about my Meet the Teacher day and the first day of school.

I went back to work last Wednesday for teacher work days. We had meetings on Wednesday. Then on Thursday my awesome principal gave us the whole day to work in our classrooms! {Plus, my bestie and I went out for lunch. We can't ever do that during the school year!} On Friday, we had a couple more meetings and some more time to get ready for Meet the Teacher.

Meet the Teacher
One o'clock came and it was time! Many smiling faces came through my door that day! Some of the faces were new, and some were very familiar from past siblings. I enjoyed talking with each and every one of them! I even had past students come by to visit me. I always tell my students that they can visit me any time.

Our Meet the Teacher is very informal. Families literally come in to meet the teacher, find their classroom, and ask any questions that they might have about the first days of school. We will have a more formal Open House next week where we go into all the details about our classrooms. Does your school have a Meet the Teacher session, Open House, or both?

The First Day of Kindergarten
Today started with the students coming onto the playground with their families. Once the bell rang, we came inside. Our parents are allowed to come into the classroom, take pictures of their little ones, and say goodbye. At each student's spot, I had put the student's name tag to wear, the student's lunch card, and a First Day of Kindergarten coloring page. While the parents said their goodbyes, the children started coloring their pages, and I went around to help my students put on their name tags.

After that, I taught my newest Kinders how to put their lunch cards and lunch boxes where they belonged. We then took lunch count to the lunch room and took a short tour around the school. I was so proud of how well my Kinders walked through the hallways!

We got back to the classroom, and I gave my Kinders a little tour of our classroom bathroom. I love that we have a bathroom, well two actually, for the students to use. It's so convenient! We then got a drink of water from the water fountain and headed outside for a little recess and first day of school picture taking.

We literally went inside for 10 minutes before it was time to go back out for our lunch recess. When my lunch was over, I joined my class in the lunch room. We let our Kinders take a little longer for lunch today since we are still learning our routines!

We went back into the classroom, put our lunch boxes away, got a drink of water, and sat down to read our first story of the year. I read the favorite First Day Jitters. Before I read the book, we talked about the Back to School Magic Confetti that I sent the students. Many of my Kinders said that the confetti helped them get their jitters out. Score!

After our story, I introduce our Smartboard to my Kinders. We sang a few songs using my August Smartboard file that I made a few years ago. It's always fun to see the students dance around!

Next, it was time for the students go to PE and for me and my bestie to have prep. How is it that 50 minutes can go by so quickly? {haha} We then, once again, went out for a little recess time.

We came inside, and I introduced my book buckets to my students. While the students read books, I pulled students to do handprints. Can someone remind me next year that handprints on the first day of school might be pushing it a little? lol Just kidding - my Kinders rocked it! Once the handprints were done, I showed the students their take home folders and they packed up. We finally talked about how great the day was, went over the dismissal procedures, and it was time to line up!

Overall, today was an awesome first day of Kindergarten! I can't wait to see what happens the next 179 days!

On my way home, I got myself a little treat! Yum!!!

I hope you had, or will have, a great first day of school! Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Listening: My son loves watching videos about Minecraft and other video games on Youtube. I'm not exactly sure which game this video is about, but I always try to keep an ear out just in case he ends up on one that uses "not so nice language." ;)

Loving: At the end of the school year, I accumulated many bags of Swedish fish (my current fav) from my students. Unfortunately for me, I didn't quite spread them out as much as I should have and gained a little weight. Once I stepped on my scale about the second week into summer break, I realized something had to be done. I went cold turkey and went 27 days without candy. (Boy was that hard! haha) Then I started tracking my calories in My Fitness Pal, and I lost pretty much all the weight I had gained. Yay! I am back to eating some candy, but definitely not bags of Swedish Fish at a time. :)

Thinking: My birthday is at the end of this month, and I'm turning the dreaded 4-0. I can't really believe it. I don't feel like I'm going to be 40, but it's happening. I know there's nothing wrong with turning 40, but it's one of those ages that just feels different. Oh well, what are you gonna do? lol

Needing: I think I say this every time I do a Currently. There is really nothing that I need. I have a wonderful husband who loves me, a wonderful son that makes me so proud, a lovely home, etc. I can't think of one thing that I need.

B2S RAK: I don't know exactly what I am going to do, but I want to do something for the wonderful office staff. We have the best office staff at my school, and I want them to know how much they are appreciated.

I haven't done a Currently in a long time, but I'm glad that I did tonight! Thanks for stopping by!

Friday, July 31, 2015

Hi everyone! I cannot believe that it's the last day of July! Where did July go? My last post here on my little piece of the web was my June Throwback! Crazy!

July was definitely a busy month here. I attended the I Teach K conference and the Teachers Pay Teachers conference the first full week of July. I learned so much! Both conferences were amazing! Then I have been subbing this summer. My son attended ESY at my school site, so I offered to help out if any teachers had to be absent. Today was the last day of ESY, and I subbed for a dear friend who used to sub for me. She told me it was funny that she was writing plans for me. lol

Well, the reason we are all here, or maybe the reason I am here, is for me to show you some more throwback bulletin boards (and a couple not so quite bulletin boards but close enough). Everything that I am showing you is from a couple years ago. I would love for you to share some of your recent or throwback bulletin boards as well!

I wish I could claim credit for this bulletin board display. However, this was a project that my Kinders made in Art class. We have an awesome art teacher! All of the projects that my Kinders make are so wonderful. When I saw these winter scenes walk in my room, I grabbed them and put them up as quick as I could!

This display is a project that we completed after reading "Five Green and Speckled Frogs." My Kinders first made a pond and a log. They then had to decide how many frogs to put in the water and how many to put on the log. After that was complete, my Kinders had to complete a few sentences as well as a number sentence.

Here is the first of my "not quite a bulletin board" displays. My Kinders made these rainbows by picking a popcorn word and writing it in the correct color of the rainbow. I just love how they turned out!

My last "not quite a bulletin board" is a door display that my Kinders made for Nevada Reading Week. To make these wonderful caterpillars, we completed a directed drawing. My Kinders then used watercolor paints to paint their very hungry caterpillars. I love how unique each caterpillar is!

Thanks for stopping by to see my throwback bulletin boards (and not quite bulletin boards). Would you like to share what your students have made? Grab the linky button above and link up below. I can't wait to see what your students have made!

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Hi! I'm back for another edition of What's On Your Bulletin Board Linky! This month, I figured since most of us are out of school we could share some throwback bulletin boards from either earlier this year or from years past. If, by any chance, you have bulletin boards from this month due to being year round or getting out late in June, please share those!

This first throwback bulletin board is truly throwback! It's from about 14 years ago when I taught in Kansas. It's so old that I had to actually scan the picture in. lol When I taught in Kansas, I was at a very small school. As in, my last year there I had 9 students in my class! We did not have an art teacher, so each Friday I did some kind of art project with my students. For this project, I had the students draw a flower in the middle, draw lines around the flower, and then color it in either warm or cool colors. I let my students decide which way they wanted to color it. {The middle two flowers are mine. I couldn't let my students have all the fun!}

My next two bulletin boards come from just a few years ago. This first one is a set of bulletin boards that contain my freebie shape penguin craftivity. My students love making these every year!

My last bulletin board is a tooth fairy activity. My students colored a tooth fairy and then finished off the sentence stem. It was fun to see what they wanted the tooth fairy to bring them!

Here is a closeup of one of the tooth fairies. I love how we added a touch of glitter to the wand and crown!

Would you like to share your bulletin boards (current or throwback)? All you have to do is grab the graphic above and add your link below. I can't wait to see all the great bulletin boards!

Saturday, June 27, 2015

It has been crazy, crazy here these past two weeks. My husband's car went into the shop for repair a dent leaving me without a car. The AC on the bottom floor of our house stopped working correctly. We went on a four day vacay to Disneyland. Friday felt like Saturday, and yet I'm still a day late for Five for Friday. But, remember one of my favorite sayings is better late than never!

I had a little mini-makeover done on my little spot in the web. I absolutely love it!

Before

After

Do you remember the little tidbit I shared above about our downstairs AC? This is why we got it fixed as quickly as possible. It has been H-O-T hot here in Las Vegas. I took this picture yesterday at about 1:00. We try to stay inside as much as possible. We have a pool, but it's even too hot to get in unless it's early morning. How hot has it been where you live?

I went to a two day training last week. At the end of the training, we each received a copy of this book. I own other books by Debbie Diller, but not this one. I look forward to reading this in the next few weeks. Have you read this book?

We have three hummingbirds that live in the tree in our front yard. They love drinking from the fountain we have. It's so relaxing to watch them fly around!

Like I said above, we went to Disneyland for four days this week. We had such a great time riding all the rides! My son absolutely loves Disneyland! He even got a little Disney magic when we were there. Colton had been looking at a pin board and was interested in the pin below. Unfortunately, we didn't have a pin to trade, but he was ok with that. The cast member (CM) offered for us to get on a ride right away which was super nice! I politely declined because we were meeting my husband at the Alice in Wonderland ride. As we got off Alice, the CM was waiting at the exit and gave Colton the pin he had been admiring! How super sweet was that! She then took my husband and Colton to get on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride right away. All I can say is that CM went out of her way to make my son's trip so special! That afternoon, I made sure to go by City Hall to let them know about how great this CM was! Have you ever received any Disney magic?

Friday, June 12, 2015

On Tuesday, I linked up with Diana and Jayme for their Tell All Tuesday linky!

I shared three stories about myself. The trick was that only two of those stories were true. Ready to find out what was true and what was a lie?

My husband and I flew to Germany, picked up my brand new car, and drove around Europe for almost 2 weeks. - True!

In 2008, my husband and I flew to Munich, Germany to pick up my brand new X3! We had a blast driving it around seeing the sights. My husband had a lot of fun driving with no speed limit on the Autobahn! I no longer have my X3 {it had some engine problems}, but I loved our trip we took in it!

Picking up my car at BMW Welt.

Me at Olympiapark.

My favorite gelato place in Bellagio, Italy.
Is it weird that I took a picture of it? lol

I once sat next to Josh Duhamel on a flight into Las Vegas. - False
Sadly, this is false! I have flown into Las Vegas tons of times (you tend to do that when you live here), but I have never sat next to Josh Duhamel. I would have loved to though! {Sorry that the picture is not centered, but felt it was necessary. You know, for editorial purposes. ;)}

My wedding was outdoors during a tornado warning. - True!
It had been raining off and on all day, but apparently we were also in a tornado warning! Allegedly, telling the bride was something that no one wanted to do. I thought everyone was lying when they told me about it later! Luckily, nothing bad happened, and I married the best guy a girl could ask for.

Not a great picture and not my actual bouquet. I'm not sure where it was. lol

So, did you guess correctly? Thanks for stopping by! Oh, and if anyone knows how to center a Getty Image in a blog post, can you please leave me a comment? I spent way too much time trying to figure it out! :)

I am lucky enough to be a mom to a wonderful son, a wife to a great husband, and a teacher to a super group of Kindergartners. I have been teaching for 17 years and am currently a Kindergarten teacher.